BYU Football: ESPN's Bill Connelly Projects Little Impact from Jake Retzlaff Departure

Originally posted on BYU Cougars on SI
By Casey Lundquist | Last updated Jul 12, 2025 11:03 AM ET

The Jake Retzlaff era at BYU has officially come to an end. On Friday, the senior quarterback announced his plans to withdraw from BYU and finish his college career at a different school.

ESPN's Bill Connelly recently released his Big 12 preview. Connelly projected that Retzlaff's departure would have a minimal impact on BYU's season. Prior to Retzlaff's departure, Connelly projected BYU to start at no. 27 in the SP+ rankings and win 8.4 games. Without Retzlaff under center, Connelly projects BYU to drop five spots from no. 27 to no. 32 and from 8.4 wins to 7.9-8.1 wins.

However, Connelly notes that BYU has been difficult to predict over the last five seasons.

That's fine, though, because I'm always wrong about BYU. Kalani Sitake's Cougars have been all over the map in recent years, zigging when I thought they'd zag. After losing Zach Wilson & Co. after the brilliant 2020 season, then holding steady at 10-3 in 2021, I thought they were pretty much sure things, but they fell to 8-5 (decent) and 66th in SP+ (less so). They returned a ton of production in 2023 and looked like prime bounce-back candidates, but they slipped further to 76th and 5-7. With quite a bit of turnover -- and an unknown juco transfer at quarterback -- there wasn't much reason to assume a sudden surge in 2024. But then came a sudden surge. Both the offense and defense improved dramatically, and the Cougars rose as high as seventh in the AP poll before settling for a mere top-15 finish.

So yeah, my BYU preview was going to be a giant shrug of the shoulders regardless of the QB situation. Bill Connelly, ESPN

On paper, BYU's schedule appears to be setup nicely for a new quarterback. The Cougars open up against an FCS opponent at home before hosting Stanford. The Cardinal are projected to be one of the worst teams in the Power Four. After those two games, BYU gets a bye to prepare for a road game at East Carolina. Those three weeks should be good preparation for BYU before they have back-to-back road games at East Carolina and at Colorado.

After the Colorado game, BYU takes on Big 12 foes Arizona and West Virginia.

You can make the argument that BYU should win all of those games despite the uncertainty at quarterback.

Then, BYU gets into the middle gauntlet of the schedule: Utah, at Iowa State, at Texas Tech, and TCU. The hope is that by that point in the season, BYU will have found a quarterback to replicate Jake Retzlaff's production from 2024.

With BYU at no. 32, the Cougars rank fifth in the preseason SP+ rankings. There are six Big 12 teams ranked 26-35.